I have a close friend in law, and I am gonna warn you that it ain't what it's cracked up to be. Law School is a scam in the same way undergraduate / STEM is a scam.
You may be attracted by the 80k-90k average starting salary.
But unlike most professions, law has a binommial distribution for starting salaries.
You will either be making 50k-60k starting salary (God forbid, or less), or you will be making 150k or more out of law school. No in between.
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Those are the distributions of starting salaries.
Those who make the 150k+ salaries are either
A. At Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Georgetown
B. They are top of their class, top 20%.
Now, granted, if you are hardworking and keep an eye out for connections, it's incredibly easy to jump up to six figures as a lawyer a couple years in. Like incredibly so, way more than other professions. This person in particular that I know got an offer for 150k a year just 5 years in.
A lot of these lower salaries (like 40-50k) are until you pass the bar, because you can't practice law until you pass the bar. You are just a liability for employers, especially if you don't pass the bar.
Getting in the top 20% of your class is no easy feet. All classes in law school are bell curve based, meaning that there is a set number of As, Bs, and Cs that are handed out. Like 5-7% of the class will get As, 20% will get A-s, the majority will get B+s, B-s, and Bs, and then like 25% will get C+s, 10% will get Cs or below. Always.
And you are competing with people who are just as qualified as you are, in fact they probably will be smarter than you.
But even if you get to Harvard or Yale, you will probably get no financial support and have to take out like at least 200k in student loans; it will be 60k for tuition a year plus living expenses, minimum of debt. That's not fun even if you get paid 150k per year.
Those who make 150k or above are in what is known as "BigLaw." This area of Law is notorious for taking advantage of young associates, making them do nothing but dirty work, taking away any free time they have, even weekends, and making them work your ass off with a constant threat of firing if you underperform, and often times, they foster a competitive environment where they select like 20 people and only retain 5 people by the end of a 5 year period. The benefit of this, though, is you get great experience and a ridiculous salary.
And once you get out of BigLaw, it can be pretty difficult to get back in unless you get promoted in a company.
So if you want to go into law that isn't a top 10 law school, make sure you get into a school that is well known in the regional area you want to practice in (I would avoid big areas like Chicago and New York, focus on areas like Cleveland, St. Louis, Seattle, Milwalke, Wilmington, some place smaller), and get a good scholarship to that school. Don't go into more than 60k of additional debt.
If you get into a top 10 Law School, make sure you know what the hell you are getting into.
